Forgiveness
by Whovian123
Summary: Just dabbling with the Doctors and Clara's relationship. This is set immediately post Trenzalore but written before the 50th anniversary special. So Matt is still the doctor.


**Found this tucked in a folder on my computer, it was written before the 50****th**** so the Timelords were actually still dead. Also Matt is still the doctor and whatnot. Also this is written from the Doctors perspective with him referring to Clara; also this is set immediately after they escape the time stream. I know everyones written about after Trenzalor and I'm a bit late to the party but I wanted to put my personal spin on the events. **

**-Whovian123**

**Disclamer. I do not own doctor who or any of its characters, all rights belong to the proper owners. **

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Logic has long since abandoned me on my quest for forgiveness. 'Forgiveness' you say, your voice raised in a question. Well I like to imagine that's what you would have said had you been awake.

Regardless, I seek forgiveness. Yes, I know, how can I possibly need forgiveness when I spend every moment I have trying to save and protect every innocent life I can find? Well it's a long story that most seen to forget. It all started with a blue box, a student, and two nosy teachers that couldn't leave a mystery alone. Of course just because it started there doesn't mean it has all that much to do with the actually quest for forgiveness.

That particular quest came later, after far too many crash landings, slightly kooky traveling companions, some impossible timeline crossing. Of course during these misadventures I didn't introduce myself a single time. Then I had a particularly hairy run in with the Master, we fought in America, lovely place might I add, even if they have a disturbing lack of Jammy Dodgers, but I digress, after our little spat me and the Master parted ways and I was on my own for a while, just drifting through time, always lending a helping hand where a helping hand was needed and meddling where I shouldn't have meddled.

Then that bloody box showed up, that last chance, use only if desperate S.O.S in a box used by my people. It tapped against the doors of my Tardis, nudging over and oven until I let up and retrieved it. After opening up the box I was shocked to discover a soul shattering message from the high council drafting me in a war over the whole of creation. What followed that is folklore; after all, the two most powerful races in the cosmos dueling can't go entirely unnoticed.

The legends are beautiful and lyrical, but I haven't the want to memorize the pretty words poorly informed people use to depict the day I annihilated my race, the day circumstances forced me to slaughter my family. I think back on it far too often though I still feel as if I've never mourned them in the proper way.

Maybe that's why I want forgiveness; well if I'm finally being honest with myself it's almost certainly why I want forgiveness.

So if I want to be forgiven for murdering my people then why when I look at your sleeping frame resting in my arms do I feel so much better, as if you could ever forgive me for the things you've had to live through after jumping into my time stream?

It makes no logical sense, then again when have you ever. You're smiling now, as if you're aware that you've puzzled me, you love teasing me and I can almost hear your cheeky comment at my confusion.

As I follow Jenny, Vastra, and Strax back to the Tardis my eyes are locked on you, I can't help it you are beautiful. Yes, I know I said you were too short and bossy with a funny nose, but honestly I've spent years running from all of my feelings and I couldn't possibly have acknowledged such strangely persistent thoughts of affection without having a mighty good logical reason to do so.

Then again, don't we both know I have long since moved on from logic?

You're doing it again, smiling. It's beautiful, ridiculously, breathtakingly beautiful. Your fists ball up around my shirt and you pull yourself closer to me as that amazing smile falls off of your face. I hate it, I hate so much that you're sad, I would take you to the farthest reaches of time and space just to see even a shadow of a smile grace your features.

I do in fact take you to the farthest reaches of space in the outskirts of existence and leave the Tardis floating in emptiness. I dropped Jenny and Co. back in Victorian London a few hours ago and am left with you in my arms. You haven't done much more than cling to me, as if I am the only thing keeping you sane. I even tried putting you back into your bed, but you wouldn't let go of me. Your grip is certainly quite iron clad for such a small person.

I keep you in my arms for several hours just walking around with you and chattering on and on about meaningless things, I even tell you about my people and Gallifray, I am sure you have lived there during at least one or your lives. Despite all the most fantastical stories I tell you the only thing that brings you back to consciousness is my singing, after I exhausted my story telling skills I remember an old Gallirayen song, more of a lullaby really, and I start singing it, five circles in you start to stir, I can tell because one of your hands grip my shirt even tighter and the other snakes around my shoulders pulling your body flush against my chest.

Once your eyes open I get another priceless glance of your smile, you flash it so quickly before you wince and scrunch your face up in pain whispering only one word. "Headache." Your voice is raspy and dry, but I swear it's the best thing I've heard in the last 300 years. Knowing you can still talk, and knowing that you still have an awareness of the world around you makes me smile a little as I lean down to place a chaste kiss to your forehead.

"I know." I mutter softy, my lips still pressing against the soft skin above your eyes. I make my way down the cold metal corridors of the Tardis. My eyes are still trained of your face, you are somewhere between alert and asleep, the kind of wakefulness that follows one waking up from an exceptional, and utterly lifelike dream where you are not quite sure if what you thought you experienced was indeed real.

I'm at your door now, the door to your room. I love your room. It is everything that you are and everything I want to be, it's cozy, bright, and smells like you, and oddly enough your aroma has started to smell like home to me.

I kick off my shoes as I pass through the doorway, and walk over to your double bed; your red shag carpet tickles my feet as I do. Your duvet catches my eye, its red and embroidered with your name, though I'm not sure if you recognize it as your name seeing as it's written out in circular gallifreyan. I can't help be smile at that adorable touch snuck in by the Tardis.

I pull back your covers in a slightly awkward fashion seeing as you are still nestled against my chest. I maneuver you to a place where you're lying on your bed and I'm leaning over you, my breath catches in my throat as I gaze at your face. Knowing I can't stay bent over you any longer before it becomes more than an affectionate thing that a friend would do I straighten up. At least I try to; your small fist has tightened considerably on the collar of my shirt.

I look to your face to see if you're aware of what you're doing, your chocolate-brown eyes stare back at my green ones with a look of terror etched in them. "Please." You whisper, raw fear coating your voice. "Don't leave." You ask with a timid tone that makes me wonder if to think I would actually leave you alone, because I know that I wouldn't, I couldn't.

I offer a small nod and you tug me toward the bed using my shirt, I slip under the sheets and as I do you turn away from me. I stare at your hair as you stay completely still, so still I can be completely sure that you are not asleep yet because it is a forced unnatural still held in place with rigid muscles.

In the moments that follow I want more than anything to wrap my arms around your waist and pull you towards me, however I can't. It would be wildly inappropriate given the fact that friends don't hold each other while they sleep and marvel in the beauty and bravery of everything they do, and friends certainly don't have to clinch their hands to keep from reaching out and stroking your soft hair. Then again, I'm not too sure that friends sacrifice themselves by jumping into time streams.

You shiver; it's only then that I realize just how cold the Tardis is. Then you shiver again, and again, and then I snap, without another moment of hesitation I reach out my arms and scoop around your waist pulling you close hoping to keep you warm. It's as if all the things I've put you through today will be ok if I can keep you warm. Once you're against me you relax, your shoulders loosen and you let out a barely audible breath.

My hands rest on your stomach and your hands come to rest over mine, I can feel your fingers fidgeting with your mothers ring and I want so badly to ask you how you are even though its rather obvious that you can't be doing all that well after being torn apart in a time stream. So I replace all the questions I have lined up two words that I whisper into your ear.

"I'm sorry."

You abruptly flip around throwing my hands off of you. Your eyes are angry, and in that moment I am sure that you are going to yell at me and demand that I bring you home immediately.

"Don't you dare launch into an epic hero speech about how you wish it could have been different, I know it could have been different, I know I could have turned around and ran away, but I couldn't have, not really. If I had left then you wouldn't be here." You're shaking as you explain now, your eyes sear into mine and you continue. "Doctor, you have to understand that I did it not because I had done it already, but because I knew that I had the choice and the other option makes me sick to the stomach, a world without you makes me feel utterly helpless and alone." Your voice breaks with the last word and you shift your eyes down to my chest, you're still trembling and it's slowly tearing me apart.

I know it's not acceptable to want so intensely to hold you now, you've been baring your soul to me and I can't help but love you even more for it. Suddenly your warmth is gone; you've rolled over to the other side of the bed getting as far from me as possible. I can't entirely suppress the shuddering empty feeling that comes from your body heat being taken from me.

A thousand words couldn't possibly say everything that I want to say to you, they couldn't possibly convey all the jumbled up feelings pounding with the dual beat of my hearts; the hearts I am sure now beat solely for you. My mouth opens of its own accord and words spill out without being authorized by my brain. "I love you." Nothing happens after that, everything is still and those words hang in the air with massive implications clinging to them. I try to breathe but my lungs have decided they have better things to do than work.

You are completely still again, that rigid painful still that leaves me worried that you're about to flip over again and actually yell at me. You don't though. Neither of us moves. We just lay next to each other listening to each other's shaky and uneven breaths. You shift your weight and your back relaxes just the tiniest bit. You stop breathing for a few seconds then take one large breath. I know you are getting ready to speak, and I know that your response will either leave me content and at peace, or it will tear me to bits.

"I love you too." You whisper those four words so softly I can only hear them because of my heightened Time Lord hearing. My hearts beat faster and my palms get a little sweaty. My thoughts jumble up a bit more than they are typically jumbled, and my eyes feel so much brighter as the corners of my mouth tug upwards. I know we have a long way to go before we are comfortable. You have to cope with thousands of lives dancing around in your head, but I know I will help you every step of the way, and I still have to forgive myself, and with your love for the first time in forever I feel like it is not so impossible.

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**If it seems a little strange it's because I was trying to capture the mental state of a 1200 year old alien. **

**So, what do you think? Too morbid? Too Happy? Too Sappy? Just awful, awful, writing. Let me know with a review, I do ask that you stay away from flames. If it's really that awful please use kind words and offer suggestions for improvement. **

**-Whovian123**


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